A Writer’s Block of Stone, Public Journey #001

I attended a writer’s class recently for five weeks. Christopher Laney (writer, pilot and all around amazing human being) lead the group. I have struggled with writing. It isn't the need for stories to tell or a lack of love for words that holds me back, but one of my blocks is that I sit down to write and what comes out, for all of it’s potential, isn't that good. It has ‘good’ in it, but it just isn't the ‘perfect’ piece I would like to write – so, I write only rarely – when the inspiration bludgeons me to action.

Christopher shared an analogy with us. In the same way a sculptor must begin with a block of stone in order to carve a work of art, the writer must begin with a mass of words and begin the process of carving piece from them. I have been experimenting with this approach by writing free-form for 30-40 minutes and then slowly sculpting something from the mass of ideas and words generated in the free-form time.  I thought it might be fun to share one of these sculpting projects with you, so I have posted below the mass of words from which I will be seeking to carve something akin to an essay. I plan to post another phase of this next weekend, and I invite you to return and see what has been released from this writer’s block of word stone…

Rivers, oceans and streams collect things – rain, mud, branches, sand, and the dead. Dead birds, fish, people. He went to sleep with the fishes.

Time heals all wounds, well time allows for adequate decay, anyway. It softens, swells, expands until it pops- melts looses from its form (lets loose itself?) and changes into the collective. In water we are all borg – resistance is futile – really it isn't present at all.

Finally it becomes homogeneous – a mixture of all things , formless, laps with all tides and waves, a rocky cradle of the world’s mush – oatmeal of everything.

Some would say we came from the sea, an evolution of undaunted genetics that have to, must evolve – gather its one self and form to conform to demands of our own becoming. So with the waxing and waning, the tugging of the moon’s tidings upon us – a planetary massaging of our little planet – we have become this formed p[lace and these formed creatures, plants, people and things.

Some speak if coming from and returning to our creator, and if such is true then we are created by the hands of the sea. See then the sea in all of us? See all of us in the sea?

We do return to the sea – the splashing of childish play and delight (I witnessed many occasions of children and adults witnessing the sea for the first time – they have been in-landers all of their life and never seen the sea. That seems strange to me – what a change of perspective that must be – to see the sea, to see and feel for the first time the sea from which we are created?), the percussion of a dead body dropped form the pier, the trickle of mucus-like decay through soil, water tables and into the streams that feed the sea – we all return. We return and melt and blend in to the great sea – dissolved and transported.

Then some poor fool turns on a tap and drinks us.

Plane Truth

The planes don’t bother me anymore. When I first started traveling to Raleigh, NC, the roar of the jets landing and taking off was disturbing. The first few nights, sleeping was impossible, rendered fretful by the random rumblings and vibrations. The deepest slumber couldn’t prevent their intrusions into my mind. Sporadically they bludgeoned me awake, torturing me in tension between denied sleep and imposed consciousness. Tonight I barely notice them, a transient drift of sound, a passing song. The planes don’t bother me anymore.

When does something bothersome get absorbed into our awareness and become normal? What shifts in our perceptions and understandings might allow us to accommodate such a change? Is it a slowly growing numbness like getting accustomed to cold ocean waters on a March morning? Does it happen more suddenly as if the nerves that carried crisp messages of pain suddenly misfired and went silent? Is it a choice? Do we choose to adapt one day and casually flip off the switch of caring? When does the new become old?

 What is that old saying? “The devil we know is better than the devil we fear?” No, that isn’t it, but I know there is one – something about new things becoming old things. “Something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue.” Yes. It is like getting married, in a way, when the new becomes familiar.

Getting married used to be, or at least we pretend it used to be, a rite of passage when many things formally taboo suddenly, in the blink of an eye, the moment of a kiss and the placement of a ring, are turned to sacred and expected to become normal. Permission from some higher authority gives us consent and instantly we change. Yet, it doesn’t happen so quickly. It takes time for us to travel from the something new to the something old, the familiar something.

We travel, though, finding ways to understand, cope, and even accept things that once surprised us. The towel left on the floor every morning, tucked away in the corner between the tub and the wall annoys us. At first we discuss and argue over the silliness of it.

“Why don’t you just hang it up?”

“I don’t know. I’ll pick it up next time.”

The next time it does get hung neatly on the rack, but soon the ‘next time’ gets lost and there’s the tossed towel, again; a damp, lifeless testimony to some inability to change. Then there comes a moment when we realize that this is a small thing, after all, and there are so many, must be so many, bigger than damp towel things. So we adjust. The cap gets left off the toothpaste and we manage to stop seeing it. The crumbs settle into the sheets and we grow accustomed to the little nuisances, simply brushing them aside to scatter somewhere else.

It isn’t a problem, really, accommodating the nuances of another, is it? Most would say, “No.” But, we have seen it matter. Sometimes it costs us too much.

Who knows when it happened to Sally? Somewhere between the something new and the something old she lost herself. Somewhere beyond the damp towel and a routine of rage she found herself staring at the barrel of a gun pointed at her like an accusing finger, like his finger. She trembled with fear. She stood there with a docile acceptance that kept her stationary when running should have been an option. It was her passive, undaunted acceptance that did her in. The bullet launched from the barrel and punctuated its own message through her skull and brain and into the plaster. She had accommodated too much. Some higher authority had been heard by her alone and commissioned her journey from startling to familiar, too far.

It is a precarious route we maneuver when we make those things new into things old, when we cease to be surprised and alarmed by the unkempt towels, loud noises in the dark and the violations of our peace. Sometimes we travel too far. Tonight I find myself wondering what else has found its passage to benign acceptance in my world along with the planes that don’t bother me anymore.

When Words Have Meaning

Words are abundant and free flowing, tokens tossed into our lives, plentiful, over available loud and empty cases more often than not. We throw them around like a used tea bag or an under valued cap that we flipped onto the floor only later to be kicked under the bed thoughtlessly when walking past, devoted to more important things, left there to settle into uselessness with the dust mites and pet dander.

Hello, how are you?

Good, you?

What are you doing?

I know that, but…

New and improved

Do you have a minute?

Whatever you want to do

It isn’t about the money

I love you

Yet, when the words are spoken at the right time, a time book ended between mutual struggles, and collective losses gathered along the common road of years battling commonality and mediocrity and when those words are spoken between you and that now dear and dying friend or quoted to you by someone who heard them spoken of you by that same collaborator of greatness – then those words mean more than the very life into which they are spoken.

Such was my day, today.

Walking Free

perspiration trails down jaw lines
the journey of necessity

vigilance
arms stretch outward

balancing
delicate steps along the precipice of doubt
pained


muscles constrict and release in rhythm
a waltz that dances ever

forward
withered cravings scream
threats

rebellion and unwillingness
fear 


wisps of liberated mist rise
once bound to soil and stone now free

rising
supportive hands appear
lifting

forever a small piece of weighty matter
relief

Twigs, Flakes and Strofoam Clumps

Why did I find a totally unrecognisable brand and 'flavor' of cereal for me to eat this morning? And, what does 'increased digestibility' have to do with breakfast?!

No wonder my wife declined when I offer to accompany her to the grocery store. grrrrrrrrrrr.

New Post Requested

Dang it Dena! I would have been more than able to create a new post, but NO you had to demand one. Now, I am at a total loss… well, when in doubt, REPOST!

Announcing the return of my first post from the New Year in 2005! I quote…

"A friend told me this today.

"Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea."

I just thought I would share."

Peace To You

Washing Clean Blues

Her hair

Strummed by tears

Falls a mess upon the pillows

The blues

Broadcasted in waves

Washes him down off her

The morning will find her empty, but clean.

November 25th, 2008

Happy Birthday Dad.

Not Unto Death

I’ve had a battle with a nasty head/chest cold the last couple of days. I’m getting better.

Such times are a reminder to me of my need to be flexible, to allow for change. Life changes, my life changes. I don’t count it as a bad thing that I get so enmeshed in the work of living each day that I lose touch with my own frailty. It is somewhat necessary to forget that any moment life can rip us from our seemingly normal path and demand something else of us. Such a continuous awareness – of my frailty – would be immobilizing.

But, when sickness or injury comes, it is interesting to witness the struggle I have to allow for them – life changes.

Today my chest burns, my eyes are puffy, my nose and throat are tender, and it is too much effort to think and plan for tomorrow – as much as tomorrow may need plans. Today my reason is tainted by surges of emotions that hack away at my serenity and taunt my self-worth. Physical and emotional sicknesses seem to be dear bedfellows, with me at least.

So, I’ll rest and limit my number of decisions. Sometimes doing nothing is the best choice. I’ll sip tea, read and sleep and let the world wait – for me.

As you were… -cough, cough-